Uncomfortably Relatable

It’s great when we see ourselves in stories, isn’t it? And I don’t just mean characters who match our appearance, neurotype, or other group identity, I mean when characters do or say or think things that make us go, “Wow, that’s me!” Or when the narrative gives the reason for what the character does and it could have been written about you.

Yes, it’s great — usually. We love to find heroic, funny, clever characters to be relatable. We even like having flaws in common with them. But what happens when we relate to the “wrong” character?

This happened to me when I read the first “Red Dwarf” novelisation, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. The TV series showed what the characters said and did, but the beauty of a novel is that it allows the author to show characters’ thoughts as well. On top of that, novels can easily incorporate backstory elements; so we got to see the past experiences of the characters instead of just hearing about them in bits of dialogue. 

Here’s a passage that I found to be painfully relatable: 

He found the process of revising so gruellingly unpleasant, so galling, so noxious that, like most people faced with task they find hateful, he devised more and more elaborate ways of not doing it in a ‘doing it’ kind of way.

In fact, it was now possible for him to revise solidly for three months and not learn anything at all.

The first week of study, he would always devote to the construction of a revision timetable. [...] Every hour of every day was subdivided into different study periods, each labelled in his lovely, tiny copperplate hand; then painted over in watercolours, a different colour for each subject, the colours gradually becoming bolder and more urgent shades as the exam time approached. The effect was as if a myriad tiny rainbow had splintered and sprinkled across the poster-sized sheet of creamwove card.

The only problem was this: because the timetables often took seven or eight weeks, and sometimes more, to complete, by the time he’d finished them the exam was almost on him. He’d then have to cram three months of revision into a single week. Gripped by an almost deranging panic, he’d then decide to sacrifice the first two days of that final week to the making of another timetable. This time for someone who had to pack three months of revision into five days. 

[A few anxiety-ridden days later, filled with everything except revision…]

...the final day’s revision before his exam.

Waking at four-thirty in the morning, after exercising, showering and breakfasting, he would sit down to prepare a final, final revision timetable, which would condense three months of revision into twelve short hours. This done, he would give up and go back to bed.

Which was why he failed exams.

Now, as the narration says, most people do this kind of “busy work” to avoid hated tasks. So this character’s pretty relatable, isn’t he? Great!

Wait, who is he again? 

It’s Rimmer.

Yes, we just related to Arnold J. Rimmer. Are you horrified yet? If not, I’m going to assume it’s because you don’t know who he is. Trust me, you do not want to have anything in common with this character. Only you might just have discovered — like I did — that you do, actually, share a flaw with him.

Now what?

Well, one result is that I developed a degree of empathy for this character. Hats off to Grant & Naylor, they created a joke character and then humanised him. And, if there’s a human side to Rimmer of all people, then maybe there’s a human side to the real-life cringe characters out there, even the really annoying ones. 

Well, maybe.

The other result is that whenever I catch myself procrastinating by making increasing detailed plans, I can tell myself that I’m being like Rimmer and I need to stop. 

Now.

Because, there might be a human side to Rimmer, but he’s still Rimmer. 

Eugh!

Outlines: Love 'Em or Hate 'Em?

I’ve been a committed planner ever since I started to write. Words have always felt too slow, even while I loved them, so I had to tell my stories in big, sweeping strokes first, just to capture it before it could get away. This may be an AuDHD thing, but no-one knew that at the time. All I knew was that I wanted to tell people my awesome story now, and not after ten minutes’ set-up — but without that set-up the story made no sense. So...

So my oral stories were pretty much impossible for anyone to understand, and they’d slip through my fingers before I could get a proper hold on them. There was a sort of transporter-portal thing, and a flooded castle (mansion?) and a feud and a pending disaster and...

And then I began to write.

Suddenly I could get the bones down on paper and fill in the gaps later. The core ideas were captured, and the story could grow from this seed (to thoroughly mix my metaphors) into something like the magnificent whole I had glimpsed when the story first arrived in my head.

I fell in love with outlining. And while I understand people who feel that an outline restricts their creativity, I know that for me an outline is more like a climbing frame. It gives me a solid structure on which to build, and lets me go higher and further than I could on open ground. 

A recent conversation with a friend provided another reason I might be attracted to outlines. We were talking about memory, and how odd it can be. My friend said that when she thinks back on her day, she can remember the “bullet points” — where she went, what tasks she did, and so on; but she struggles to remember the “in between” moments: how she got from A to B, brief conversations between important tasks, etc. When she said that, I realised that my memory works in a similar way. For example, I can remember that conversation, but not what was said before or after.

In other words, when I write an outline for a story I’m thinking about it in the same way that I process real-life events. I think in bullet points, and fill in the details later. And because different brains work in different ways, other people probably have different ways of processing memories. 

When I read novels that included diary entries, I used to feel that the novelist was using a bit — or a lot — of poetic license with how people write real diaries. Surely there’s no dialogue, no detailed descriptions, no smooth flow of events in chronological order in a real diary? It’s more likely to be a collection of isolated incidents, or a simple list of events, or a rant about the weather. 

Well, that’s what my diaries were like. 

But perhaps there really are people who can sit down and write a scene — invented or remembered — as a coherent narrative right out of the gate. Who don’t need to jump right to the most important part and then go back and do the build-up afterwards. There might be people who can type at the speed of thought, and get their stories down entire and complete in one go. 

But I am not one of those people, and so I will go right on using outlines. And telling long, rambling stories that branch off and circle around, and lose themselves in…

[This post was written without the benefit of an outline.]

Middles

Those of you following these posts live will have noticed that there is a gap in posting, which is in the process of being filled. (If you’re here on an archive crawl from the future, then please pretend that I was supremely organised and had everything queued up weeks in advance.) This “slump” is the curse of the middle: my constant companion in all projects, great and small.

Case in point: Act Two of The Avlem Burden is doing my head in. 

I know where the story is going. I know what the characters are doing. I know why, and how, and all the things, because I’ve procrastinated on the writing by overthinking every detail of this story. The only thing left to do is write the draft, and that’s exactly what I’m not doing. 

Why do you think I impulsively jumped into the A-Z challenge this year? To avoid working on TAB, of course!

And now this challenge is also a project, and has reached the middle, and is, of course, becoming a chore. I thought I might trick myself into writing TAB in order to avoid blogging, but that didn’t work. It’s hard to outsmart your own brain, especially on purpose.

I have two options now, as I see it. Well, three if you count “giving up” but I’m not going to so that’s out and we’re back to two. 

1. I could summon up all of my (meagre) willpower and make myself sit down and write.
2. I could step back and remind myself why I want to write, and where I’m going with all these words. 

Willpower on its own simply doesn’t work for me. I know it works for some people, and I watch in amazement as they show up day after day no matter their mood out of sheer determination. 

I am not filled with determination. I am filled with procrastination. 

But option two doesn’t work on its own, either. I can think about how much the Fragments cycle means to me, and why the A-Z challenge is so much fun — think and think and think! It ramps up my desire to finish, but does nothing to move me forward. 

Engaging the gears is useless without also pressing the accelerator.

Pressing the accelerator is useless without also engaging the gears. 

I need both drive and determination if I’m going to get through this murky middle and catch up with my goals on the other side. Drive, determination, and a little help from my friends. 

Thank you to everyone who’s commented so far. I will be returning the favour ASAP. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here, catching up on my work and trying to avoid stalling. 

 Again.

Justification

Content Warning

This post and the next are continuing the theme of sensitivity and offence – deliberate or otherwise. Everything will be from my perspective, and the views expressed are not intended as guidance of any kind.

If this is a delicate subject for you, please skip forward to Light Verse. Thank you.

Gritty vs. Grown Up

 

I write for adults, in that my characters are adults and I don't generally write "coming of age" or similarly YA-focused themes. But I don't write "adult" as in smut, gore, and foul language. Neither do I require exceptional levels of erudition of my audience 😉 because plain language can work just as well to tell a story.

No, there's nothing "inappropriate" in my writing – but it's still not for children. Children are perfectly welcome to read it, and some have, but I write for adults. For people with old scars, buried regrets, and long-held beliefs. There are many highly intelligent children in the world who will be able to understand the stories, and even the themes; but they will probably struggle to empathise with the characters just because they haven't been alive for long enough.

So, if I'm writing for adults, why don't my stories have explicit  content? Well, to be blunt, it's because I'm writing for adults. Actual adults, not overage kids. 

I think that most of us go through a phase where we revel in being old enough for "grown up" things, and seek out all the previously forbidden delights. At the same time, we develop a horror of anything that might been seen as "for kids". Cue sex, drugs, blood, and profanity, served up with a hefty helping of cynicism. 

But eventually we grow to develop our own tastes, independent of what we're "supposed" to like or dislike. To quote C.S. Lewis, “To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence ... When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Lesson Seven

What we read, watch, listen to – or choose to avoid, as the case may be – is a personal choice. I don't want to be judged on my personal choices, and have no business judging anyone else's. Stories don't have to be "gritty" to be mature, but the reverse is also true: grim and dark stories are not automatically immature.

Elephants and Expectations

 

The person you meet through the pages of this biog, my social media, or even the author as unconsciously revealed in my stories is not the real me. Not because I'm lying to you. but because it's impossible to fit a real person into a persona.

Again, when I say "persona", I don't mean a fake personality. What you see here is the truth and nothing but the truth – but it's not the whole truth. That would be impossible.

We are all in the same position as those blind sages who tried to describe an elephant, arguing back and forth about whether an elephant was most like a wall, a tree, a rope, a fan, a snake, or a spear. We want to have neat, familiar descriptions for people: Agatha Christie = murder mysteries, Jane Austen = witty romances, Terry Pratchett = absurdist fantasy, Malorie Blackman = dystopian YA, etc.

It's not that these descriptors are wrong exactly, but they are certainly incomplete. 

 Labels are useful, though. They help us to find what we're looking for, and to describe things to each other. If you're after a fast-paced action thriller, then Jane Austen probably isn't the best fit. But she's perfect if you want a subtle piece of social satire, or a contemporary view of that particular bit of history.

So, we can't completely do without labels, but labels are not enough. This is part of the trouble I'm having with creating my "author brand". Every time I try to fit my writing under a helpful label, I find myself thinking about all the ways that label doesn't quite fit. Even this portfolio-blog (blog-folio?) is hard to categorise, and this is a curated collection. 

 (Suggestions welcome, by the way.)

I know my stories won't appeal to everyone – that would be impossible, even if I wanted to do it – but I don't know how best to label myself so that the people who might like my work will be able to find me.

What am I: A poet? A novelist? A blogger? Songwriter? Game designer?

What's my genre: Fantasy? Historical? Superhero? Dystopian? Fairy tales? 

What kind of narrative voice do I use? Comedic? Serious? Literary? Accessible? 

Well... yes. All of the above. Some of those things haven't been uploaded here yet, but I've done them. And that's not even counting the projects I have in my queue, where many new and strange things are waiting to be explored. 

Lesson Five:

Labels are OK, but I shouldn't get too worked up about them. They're useful indicators, not hard limits.